Realization
by saarazaara
Summary: Foreman & Cameron talk Post Euphoria, Pre No Reason. Mild implied ForemanChase 'cos there aint enough. Yes, I know its AU & not really canon. Don't read if it isn't your thing. If it is, please let me know what you think.


Disclaimers: Don't own 'em, never will (believe me, Chase wouldn't be with Foreman if I did!).

Pairing: Foreman/Chase

Rating: PG-13, I think (some kissing & language, a few minor references to sex)

Author's Note/Spoiler Warning: This is supposed to be set shortly before "No Reason" – it contains a lot of tangential references to events of season 2.

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"Since when have you been sleeping together?" Cameron asked, her voice deceptively calm. She was with Foreman in the lab, waiting for the machinery humming around them to spit back results on their latest patient.

Foreman raised an eyebrow. "Does it really matter?"

No, she thought, it shouldn't, but for some reason beyond her immediate grasp, she needed to know.

"House..?"

Foreman looked puzzled. "What about House?"

"He'll have a field day with this, you aren't concerned? What about Cuddy, she's not going to be pleased if you're sleeping with a coworker".

"That never stopped you", he responded dryly, a chuckle in the back of his throat. "Anyway, you know House's already moved on to greener pastures, mainly who's mowing Cuddy currently". His tone became more serious. "This isn't new news, Allison, we haven't been keeping it a secret from you". He paused and a small grin broke out. "You do have a tendency to be rather self-absorbed, you know".

The implied criticism stung; she prided herself on being the sensitive one, the one most concerned with the well-being of her patients and her colleagues, the one most aware of their needs and concerns. After all hadn't she been the one to be Foreman's medical proxy, rather than his father or House, even Chase himself?

"When.. the first time?" she demanded. "Tell me".

"Fine," Foreman gazed steadily back at her. "The oncology conference last year".

Before me. _Before me. _ Chase hadn't been lying when he said it shouldn't happen again. Her brain raced back to that hung over morning in the diagnostics conference room. It explained Foreman's amused looks to Chase (and Chase's embarrassed blush in return) when House had dragged the situation out in public for everyone's scrutiny and then he had apparently wanted to see how Foreman would react to Chase's possible infidelity.

Foreman seemed to be reading her thoughts.

"It wasn't a big deal when he slept with you. We weren't exclusive, I was seeing someone else too. Then supervising House and trying to maintain a relationship with Robert at the same time was a disaster." He shrugged at the memory, pushing it away. "It didn't get serious til recently."

"Then why didn't you give him the proxy?". Maybe they weren't that close after all, maybe it was just sex, maybe….

Foreman's harsh tone cut cross her thoughts. "What, are you serious? He had to deal with enough when his mother died. I wasn't about to put him through that again. Why do you think House pulled him back from treating me?"

Cameron looked at him in dismay.

She'd learned details of Chase's family history over the past few months when his father's death finally became public knowledge at PPTH, his mother's alcoholism, Chase's depression and grief and the fact that he was now alone and she'd come to regard herself as the one person other than maybe House who could reach some part of him, the one person that he had actually slept with at PPTH for, despite his reputation for being a colossal flirt, Chase had apparently, or so it seemed, had the sense to keep his personal life strictly separated and private from his professional one. He needed help and she could do so, would do so when the time was right, when there weren't so many patients, when her attention wasn't focused on Wilson's divorce, on House's pain, on her article, but in the meantime Chase had apparently decided that he wasn't prepared to wait. No, she corrected herself with a sick feeling; she had simply been someone he indulged when she called. He'd looked elsewhere and found what he needed, someone to share his bed with for more than just one night, someone to share his secrets with, and the notion that she simply wasn't that necessary to him hit her like a bath of ice water.

"Anyway, since when do you care who he's sleeping with?", Foreman asked, turning her own words back.

Then the embarrassing realization came that she wasn't being completely honest with herself, that she was angry because she had been so blind to what was going on in front of her very eyes. Angry that they had found a measure of happiness, a life together Chase had never even suggested he wanted with her.

And furiously angry that happiness continued to elude her, despite her best efforts, and maybe always would.


End file.
